Teens, Responsibility, Punishment, Laws, Suicide

Here is something I was writing in my journal. Some details have been changed.

---

Was feeling very frustrated again this morning. Thinking of Leslie who said “I have to pull my weight in the family.” Earlier in the week she was telling me she was thinking about killing herself, picturing different ways to do it. A few weeks ago her mother’s boyfriend convinced her to have sex with him again, saying “We are family now and we are just helping each other out.” She has been feeling more suicidal since then.

She fights with her little brother who is constantly trying to get her in trouble and blame her for things. She fights with her mother, who comes in and disconnects the Internet while x is talking to someone, even if she is trying to help another suicidal teen. The mother doesn’t ask who Leslie is talking to. She just comes in and disconnects the cable whenever she feels like it. Often she does it to punish Leslie, maybe because she didn’t set the table or make her bed, or maybe because she “talked back.”

Recently Alisha told me her mother punished her for kissing a girl. The mother banned Alisha from the computer for the weekend and made her clean her room. Alisha responds to this punishment and control and obeyed her mother. What choice does she have?

How much choice do prisoners have and how much choice did slaves have? Some people may not like my analogies, but I have seen enough teen prisoners and teen slaves to feel justified in making them. Read the story of Jessica in Peru if you want one example of a teen slave. She has to fold napkins without pay in her mother’s restaurant. I don’t think the South Americans have the expression “pull your own weight” but they have many other ways of making young humans feel responsible and guilty for things which are not their responsibility at all. Or they simply hit them to control them, as Jessica's parents do.

I haven’t talked to a suicidal teen yet who was consulted before the parents had sex and created them or their younger siblings. So how is the teenager responsible for the parents’ actions and choices? Only because the parents have psychological and legal power of the teen. They can say “You have to pull your own weight in the family” and the teen is most likely going to believe this and be manipulated and controlled by these small but powerful programming techniques. Emotionally intelligent parents who themselves were abused are no doubt the most skillful at manipulating their children and teens. They know just how to push the buttons.

I heard something once…"Your parents know how to push your buttons because they installed the wiring."

I get frustrated when I see teenagers repeating the things that parents tell them. Things like “you have to pull your weight in the family” and “you brought this on yourself” which is the message another teen named Zoey gets from her family, if we can call it that.

Once Ocean’s mother said “You are the least productive member of the family.” The mother wanted Ocean to spend more time and energy cleaning the house. But Ocean wasn’t consulted before she was born. She wasn’t asked if she would agree to live under her parents rules and values for 18 years. In fact, when Ocean was old enough to think for herself she realized she wanted other parents, she invented them in her mind. She invented a whole other world and thought she would be able to escape to it. But when she was 11 she realized that wasn’t going to happen. She was stuck with two people society calls her parents for the next 7 years.

What would one year of psychological abuse to do a sensitive 11 year old, let alone 7?

Because Ocean was not legally allowed to leave her parent’s house, she nearly took her own life. And other teens in uncountable numbers have killed themselves because they were forced to try to live in an environment which did not meet their emotional needs.

I am still not sure why anyone would create a law which makes it illegal for a young person to decide where they want to live. But I will keep trying to open up a few eyes to the deadly results of this law.

S. Hein
Salta, Argentina
Sept 4, 2006

EQI.org Home Page

Core Components of EQI.org

Other EQI.org Topics:

Emotional Intelligence | Empathy
Emotional Abuse | Understanding
Emotional Literacy | Feeling Words
Respect | Parenting | Caring
Listening | Invalidation | Hugs
Depression |Education
Personal Growth

Search EQI.org | Support EQI.org

EQI.org Library and Bookstore